Tierra non grata II
Inspired by the controversial EU-Turkey deal signed in 2016, I decided to take the reverse route that migrants typically follow.
Traveling by bus, I journeyed from Prague, Czechia, through Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria, eventually reaching Istanbul, Turkey.
Upon arriving at an artist residency in the Helikon Art Center, I began documenting it, collecting, scanning, and photographing
objects, to better understand its materiality and the conditions shaping it. This process led me to an extended exploration
of the materials found in the Kocaeli region and Helikon itself. Juxtaposing these elements, I created an installation reflecting
on dying ecosystems, global warming, and the entangled crises of displacement and ecological destruction. This project, then,
is not only an assemblage of materials but also an inquiry into borders, both geopolitical and ecological. It reflects on the precarity
of movement, the fragility of ecosystems, and the silent testimonies embedded in found objects. In a world where both people
and landscapes are increasingly dispossessed, the act of collecting, repurposing, and rearranging becomes a form of resistance,
an insistence on remembering, on witnessing, on reconfiguring meaning from what remains.
*The title Tierra non grata II can be translated into English as “Unwanted Earth II.” The word “tierra” is intentionally
kept in Spanish, with the added “i” in the title being a deliberate choice.
Series of photographs, Kocaeli, Turkey, 2024
Site-specific installation, drawings, a piece of canvas, blanket, coal, shells, stones, marble pieces, found newspapers placed in a glass bottle, dirt, 2024
tierra
noun, feminine (plural: tierras f)—
· land n
· earth n
· ground n
· soil n
non grata
· not approved
· unwelcome
